


though i walk through the valley of darkness, i see no evil, speak no evil...

by EldritchCadence



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Depression, Drabble, Happy 4/13! (Homestuck), John has his head up his ass, Self-Esteem Issues, as new updates excuse me upd8s come out i might add more whooooo knows, possible self harm/suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 03:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18460418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EldritchCadence/pseuds/EldritchCadence
Summary: It’s John Egbert’s 23rd birthday, a decade after the Game changed everything he ever knew and three years after the universe was saved.Now one of his best friends says he has to do it again.





	though i walk through the valley of darkness, i see no evil, speak no evil...

**Author's Note:**

> In which John flagrantly denies things, and thinks about his choice.  
> John is almost definitely at least a little OOC, but cut me some slack, the last Homestuck I read before today was a few months ago and a DnD AU.

It’s your 23rd birthday and the universe is ending again.

Apparently the universe has been ending for quite a while, and you just weren’t told. Oh, you can’t blame Rose, Rose is-  
Rose is Rose, and she tries her best.

You feel torn, not just between decisions- in the end, you always know which one you’ll pick- but between selves. 

Sometimes you wonder if maybe there has always been two of you. Two of you sharing this body, two of you making decisions, two of you trying to forget that your birthday was also the day you ended the world.

John Egbert and a Just Retcon. The universe likes things to go like that. Everything neat and tidy and narratively sorted out, so as the battles are won the stakes are raised and-

God, you’re so fucking tired.

At first everything was great and you had all your friends around you, and that was the life, honestly, just being able to exist with the people you loved.

And then a year passed, and then another year, and deep in your subconscious you’re keeping this goddamn birthday banner up not because you feel lazy, but because you feel like you deserve to have to know it’s there.

But the you out here doesn’t want to know that. The banner, regardless, stays. In memoriam of all the people I killed, it says, in memoriam of when I was younger and I thought I had my whole life ahead of me and then everything pulled away in the span of 60, 59, 58...

You are John Egbert, and you’ve heard the stories. You bit the apple the snakelike man made sure you had and now everything you knew isn’t there.

Sometimes you go on drives. You don’t leave your planet for the roads of humans and trolls- it’s always so loud over there. You just do the windy thing and you coast on the breeze and pretend there’s cement under your wheels. You’re a pretty good driver, now. You taught yourself. You avoid all the cloud pedestrians and buildings and you stick to the side of the road and you know all the gales that constitute your streets on your little planet. Sometimes, when you feel really, really tired, you set on a long stretch and when you feel the wind start to change directions you push the gas harder and go faster and then there’s no road, just you.  
It’s a sense of freedom, you tell yourself. Because you’re letting yourself break the rules of the road and that’s exciting! 

Even if that means that the road just ends and the only thing left is some sort of tailspin impact with yourself-  
It’s an adrenaline rush, like a roller coaster, you tell yourself, and you know this to be true because there’s nothing else for it to be. Just something to get you going- in a literal sense!- when you’re really tired.

Right now you would kind of like to be driving, but instead you’re on top of some older carapacian building and you’re so still. It’s not on purpose. It’s just that a god of Breath doesn’t necessarily need air, that’s all, and sometimes you forget to breathe.

You’ve acted like you were pretty sure on your decision but wanted to triple-check first, and Calliope and Roxy said they understood, even though Roxy looked a little more blank when you said that. Big decision, after all. Makes sense.

You stare at the sky that’s different from yours and the clouds that are nothing like yours and you wonder briefly which set is the one you’re calling “yours”. It’s your birthday, though, so you were expecting this.

You quash the thought in its infancy. Easy as pie.

Oh, you should probably say goodbye to everyone before you leave. That makes sense! You haven’t seen some of them in a while, anyway, and it’ll be good to catch up with them, and then you’ll go out on your big heroic adventure and then everything will be fine again. Right!  
You rise up from rooftop- slower than three years ago, you notice but don’t think, why would you think that?- and set out.

You’re gonna have lots of great stories when you come back from beating Lord English. You know it!


End file.
